


An Accidental Rivalry

by katgryffindor



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Because I am a sucker for the hsau, F/F, HSAU, cophine - Freeform, cophine hsau
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 10:55:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7681636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katgryffindor/pseuds/katgryffindor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Delphine transfers from France to start her Freshman year after her parents get a divorce and her mom wants a fresh start. </p><p>Delphine's trying her hardest to make friends and to fit in, despite being so different. She can't really relate to her new classmates but she wants to. She quickly rises to the top of their class, she may be trying to fit in but she won't fake bad grades. She attracts more attention than she means to, though. </p><p>The new girl gives Cosima a run for her money as far as academics are concerned and Cosima is NOT graduating salutatorian so she decides to give this usurper a piece of her mind. That is, before she sees her face and basically falls ass over ankles in love with the girl. She wants Delphine to be her rival even less than Delphine wants to be in a rivalry...</p><p>...but does either girl really know what they want?</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Accidental Rivalry

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prologue, I hope you guys like it! I should be updating at l e a s t once a month, but maybe as often as once a week? Who knows. If you've followed my work before, you know i'm terrible at deadlines.

Moving to America with Maman was a huge thing for me. I didn’t want to go; all of my roots were in Paris! My friends, my school, my childhood. Everything I had ever  _ known _ was in Paris, but so was my father, and that was enough to make me want to leave. My parents had gotten divorced recently, my father’s secretary having a lot to do with it, and my mother wanted a fresh start. I couldn’t blame her- I did too. Still, for a solid week after the court dates finished and the custody decision was made, I made a pronounced effort to not speak to either parent. It was childish, yes. But I wasn’t exactly a rational adult, was I? Neither of them seemed to mind too much which, of course, only encouraged me. 

One day, about a week after Maman and I landed in San Francisco, I was sitting on the couch in the front room of our new townhouse, pouting and reading a book about Dermatobia hominis, or “the human botfly.” Maman came down the stairs and announced that she was going school shopping. She said she thought I would probably want to join her for that, but that it would require me to speak to her, so she wasn’t sure. I rolled my eyes. It didn’t take me long to make my decision; I may have been mad at her, but I knew that if I stayed home, I would end up with clothes that I wouldn’t wear and garishly pink notebooks that I wouldn’t use. So, I went with her to the mall. I pouted the whole way there, naturally, but then I was a bit too busy being in awe to continue my tantrum. Until that moment, I hadn’t been exposed to so many Americans at once- it was fascinating. 

We waited in line for coffee at Starbucks and it looked as though we had a long time to wait, so I engaged in a favorite pastime of mine: people watching. To my left, there was a young couple with their tongues further down each other’s throats than their respective tonsils. The girl, who was facing me, opened her heavily-lined eyes and saw me watching them. She winked at me and I looked away immediately, blushing. In the front of the Lululemon store, not far from them, stood a stressed-looking girl around my age waiting for whomever was on the other line to answer their phone, 

“Hello? Beth? You were supposed to meet me here!” 

A pause.

“Why do you sound so strange? ...Are you drunk?!”

Another pause. Longer, this time. A pained look. 

Her voice was softer this time, a little guilty, “I… I’m so sorry Beth. I didn’t know. No- please don’t hang up. I… I’m in the mall right now, but I can be at our spot in fifteen minutes. Meet me there?”

Beth answered on the other line, but it sounded like this girl was talking over Beth’s response with her own. A blush rose to her cheeks and her eyes widened. “Sounds great, I’ll meet you there!” She ended the call hurriedly and power-walked in the other direction. 

I turned to my right, laughing to myself at the girls’ conversation and wondering what exactly had just happened to Beth, and what she told the other girl to make her react like that. I hoped I could make a good friend like that when school started. A short girl came out of a store with a strange, ramped doorway and large yellow letters above it: Pac-Sun. She had a longboard in one arm, some shopping bags in the other, and a mischievous, toothy grin on her face. There was something about her that held my attention. Maybe it was the way her sweater was apparently chosen without regard to size, and seemed to perpetually slip off of her slender shoulders. Maybe it was the way she was carrying too many things but looked at ease with it- like she did that all the time. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. 

Something in the back of my mind whispered that what held my attention was definitely the way her eyes glinted while she smiled and pulled out her phone to compose a text. She laughed to herself and I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone that had more joy pouring out of them than she did. She turned toward me and we made eye contact. I stopped myself from looking away as I had just moments earlier; I didn’t feel guilty for getting caught staring at her- if anything, I felt a bit giddy. I smiled at her stupidly, holding back a dazed wave. She smiled back and laughed to herself again, putting her board down and kicking off in exactly the way I was sure she wasn’t supposed to do in the building. The butterflies in my stomach convinced me that rule wasn’t important. 

My mother elbowed me silently and as I whipped around, I realized we were next in line. I asked the barista, a tall and slender boy named Felix, if he could recommend anything. He told me that even though, judging by my accent, I was a “frog,” he’d give me a solid rec, and that the White Chocolate Mocha Frapp was “bloody good.” I told him I wanted a large, and he laughed at me. 

“Oh, come on, Frenchie! Surely you’ve been to a Starbucks before?”

He must have noticed the blush that rose in my cheeks because he coughed to cover his laugh, and whispered to me that their large was referred to as a “venti.” I told him that was what I wanted, and my mother did the same. When we got our drinks, we were both quite surprised that the large was so…  _ large.  _ As we walked away from the counter, I heard Felix’s voice again. “Oi! Sarah! Are you and Paul done cleaning each other’s tonsils yet? We’ve got customers!” Maman and I giggled as we clutched our too-big coffees and began our expedition in search of school clothes. 

We walked out of the mall, several hours later, each of us weighed down with heavy bags filled with plenty of clothes and a lot of other things as well. We looked at each other and laughed as we loaded our new treasures into the back. 

“Your father will kill us!”

“If he’s angry with you about this, just tell him I left all my clothes in Paris with my life, Maman.”

She looked a little hurt, “You’re not still upset?”

“No, not really. But he doesn’t know that!” I fixed her with a serious look, “I might get a new laptop out of his guilt!” We shared another laugh as I hopped into the passenger’s seat beside her. 

“I wouldn’t bet on it, Delphine, that’s where you got all this stuff from just now!”

“We’ll see about that, Maman. You know how good I am at guilting Papa.” 

We listened to the first station we picked up on the way home, and sang along to songs we didn’t know, just like back in Paris. If I thought about it, America wasn’t really  _ so _ different from France. It seemed like the only thing that was really new was that girl. I found the north star, and I wished to see her again, though at the time I wasn't sure why. 


End file.
